December facts

While investigating facts about December, I found out little known, but curios details like:

In December 1777, Morocco officially became the first nation to recognize the United States as a country, Morocco also holds the record for maintaining the longest unbroken treaty with the U.S.

On December 28, 1973, after having worked for 16 hours a day without breaks for six weeks, the crew of the Skylab space station mutineed and shut off communications with ground control for a day

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 50 of the best facts about December I managed to collect.

1. Over a period of 200 years, 3 ships perished at the same location off the coast of Wales, all on December 5th, and all 3 had only one survivor. The 3 survivors all had the same name: Hugh Williams.

2. Valery Spiridonov, a 31 year old man who suffers from Werdnig-Hoffman's - a muscle-wasting disease which has left him in a wheelchair, has volunteered to partake in the world's first head transplant which will take place as early as December of 2017.

3. In December 1999 a schizophrenic man broke into George Harrison’s home and stabbed him over 40 times. His wife incapacitated the man and George was hospitalized. His official statement following the attack was “He wasn't a burglar, and he certainly wasn't auditioning for the Traveling Wilburys.”

4. Kirk Douglas, star of Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory (1957) and Spartacus (1960), will turn 100 years old on December 9th. He has starred in 91 films, won a Lifetime Achievement Oscar in 1996, and has survived a helicopter crash and a stroke. He is also the world's oldest celebrity blogger.

5. The first SMS text message ever sent was on December 3, 1992. It was sent by a 22 year old test engineer from his computer to a phone. The message simply read "Merry Christmas".

6. The Romans had a December holiday of merrymaking and gift-giving from 500 BC.

7. While on a hunting trip, guitarist Jerry Cantrell of Alice In Chains forgot that November only had 30 days, missing a scheduled performance on December 1st. The next day, he received a calendar as a gift from Columbia records.

8. The Polish government wrote a White Book with proof of the mass extermination of jews in german occupied Poland and gave it to the United Nations on December 10th, 1942.

9. Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr., was the first African American astronaut. The project he worked on would go on to become the International Space Station. He died in the backseat of his plane while teaching a cadet how to fly 50 years ago this past Friday (December 8, 1967). He was 32 years old.

10. In 2038, we will have another Y2K-style software issue with dates, as 32 bit software can't represent time past Tuesday, 19 January 2038. Times beyond that will be stored internally as a negative number, which these systems will interpret as Friday, 13 December 1901

December data charts

For your convenience take a look at December figures with stats and charts presented as graphic.

What is true about december?

You can easily fact check it by examining the linked well-known sources.

James O. Richardson pleaded with FDR over his poor decision to centralize the Naval fleet at Pearl Harbor, warned of the risks, was fired in Februrary of 1941, only to be proven right on December 7th when the Japanese attacked and sunk it.

During the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on 26 December 2004, fishermen said they saw with their own eyes "the reality of generations of legends . . . the remains of ancient temples and hundreds of refrigerator-sized blocks, all briefly exposed before the sea swallowed them up again." - source

Conrad Heyer is the earliest-born person of whom a photograph is known to exist. He fought for the Continental Army under the command of George Washington and participated in Washington's famous crossing of the Delaware in December 1776. In 1852, aged 103, he posed for this daguerreotype. - source

December 5th is Krampusnacht or "Krampus Night" when men dressed as Krampus drink alcohol, run through the streets, and chase delinquent children around and hit them with sticks. Many anthropologists believe the tradition is pre-Christian and goes back to pagan mythology.

During the entire month of December in 2017, Moscow experienced only 6 minutes of sunlight total - source

George Lucas 'ideally would love not to see any footage [of the newest Star Wars film: The Force Awakens] until he walks into the theater next December. He has never been able to be surprised by a Star Wars film before and he said he was looking forward to it.'

Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev launched into space as a Soviet citizen, but returned to earth as a Russian citizen - he was in orbit when the Soviet Union dissolved on December 26, 1991.

Fight Club, The Green Mile, American Beauty, The Sixth Sense, Magnolia, Toy Story 2, and Being John Malkovich were all playing in theaters on December 24, 1999.

The founder of eSnipe, a website that places bids for eBay users during the last seconds of an auction, placed the site for sale in December 2000. The auction was won by an eSnipe user - using eSnipe to place the winning bid.

Morocco, in December 1777, became the first nation to recognize the United States as an independent government, and together they maintain the United States' longest unbroken treaty.

Wham! donated all the royalties from "Last Christmas"—released December 1984—to Ethiopia famine aid.

December infographics

Beautiful visual representation of December numbers and stats to get perspecive of the whole story.